This year Fortune has revamped the Most Admired Survey by combining the former America's Most Admired Company (AMAC) survey and the former World's Most Admired Company (WMAC) survey into one.

The new listing better represents the competitive landscape faced by today's companies. The survey covers 64 industries: 25 international industries and 39 primarily U.S.-market industries. Basically, the international industries follow the rules of the old WMAC (where as many as the 15 largest companies in an industry by revenue are chosen), and the 39 U.S. industries follow the rules of the old AMAC (where as many as the ten largest companies in an industry by revenue are chosen). The impact of the changes is a reduction in the number of smaller American companies in the international industries and a slight increase in the number of foreign competitors in the 39 U.S.-market industries.

The new Most Admired list is the definitive report card on corporate reputations. Our survey partners at Hay Group started with some 1,400 companies: the Fortune 1,000-the 1,000 largest U.S. companies ranked by revenue; non-U.S. companies in Fortune's Global 500 database with revenues of $10 billion or more; and the top foreign companies operating in the U.S.

They then sorted the companies by industry and selected the 15 largest for each international industry and the ten largest for each U.S. industry. To create the 64 industry lists, Hay Group asked executives, directors, and analysts to rate companies in their own industry on nine criteria, from investment value to social responsibility. This year only the best are listed: A company's score must rank in the top half of its industry survey.

To create the top 50 overall list of Most Admired Companies, Hay Group asked 4,047 executives, directors, and securities analysts who had responded to the industry surveys to select the ten companies they admired most. They chose from a list made up of the companies that ranked in the top 25% in last year's surveys, plus those that finished in the top 20% of their industry. Anyone could vote for any company in any industry. The difference in the voting rolls is why some results can seem anomalous-for example, Toyota is one of the top ten Most Admired Companies, but only second in its industry to BMW, which ranked 28th on the top 50.

A total of 689 companies from 28 countries were surveyed. Because of an insufficient response rate, the results for companies in Mortgage Services and in Oil and Gas Equipment, Services are not reported. In addition, in the Forest and Paper Products industry only the aggregate scores and ranks are published because of the distribution of responses in that industry.